Ebola vaccine produced at two laboratories in Russia

October 13, 2014, 15:28 UTC+3MOSCOWDefense Ministry’s Microbiology Research Institute in Sergiyev Posad (Moscow region) and at the Vektor Center for Virology and Biotechnologies in Novosibirsk have developed a vaccine against Ebola

MOSCOW, October 13. /TASS/. Scientists in a Moscow region town and in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk have produced a vaccine against the Ebola virus, an eminent Russian medical authority told TASS on Monday.

“At the virology center of the Defense Ministry’s Microbiology Research Institute in Sergiyev Posad (Moscow region) and at the Vektor Center for Virology and Biotechnologies in Novosibirsk, vaccines are ready," Valery Chereshnev, chairman of the State Duma’s parliamentary committee on science and technologies and member of the Skolkovo Innovation Center Scientific Council said Monday.

Hopes in the fight against Ebola also lay in Triazaverine, a medicine developed by scientists at the Urals branch of the Academy of Sciences jointly with specialists of the Health Ministry’s Institute for Influenza Studies and the Urals University. Ministry officials have approved the medicine's use, Chereshnev said .

“The medicine’s authors have not checked its effect against Ebola but against various lines of flu viruses it has proved to work very actively: great medicine it is,” he added.

“Triazaverine has not been tested against the Ebola virus as the disease was registered only rarely in the past,” one of the medicine's formulators, Academician Oleg Chupakhin, told TASS. Triazaverine had generated good results against 15 forms of flu, including A/H1N1 (swine flu) and H5N1 (avian flu) at any stage of the disease, he said.

Academician Chereshnev said current measures to protect Russia from Ebola are sufficient.

“All people with symptoms of acute respiratory infection are stopped at airports and undergo blood tests," he said. "It is quite realistic to have a final diagnosis within several days. Checking people at airports is effective and the practice is used globally.

Russian Healthcare Minister Veronika Skrovtsova said on Monday that six months will be needed to prepare Russian Ebola vaccine for clinical trials.